Working at Living

April 17, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
My dad lost his job when I was 15. He was out of work for two years and we went from being an upper-middleclass family with extra money for vacations and designer clothes to a low-income family that worried about paying the bills. It was difficult for all of us, but in hindsight, it was the best thing that has ever happened to me. I learned that the things I once thought were important – fancy clothes, a big screen TV, Caribbean vacations – paled in comparison to a loving family and friends, strong work ethic and pride in a job well done.

When my dad returned to work I bought him a mug that read, “I am no longer living at work; I am working at living.” The mug reflected a shift in my family’s priorities and an important lesson I had learned about life – work is what you do, not who you are.

I love my job. I have the freedom to work from home, set my own hours, spend my days being creative, and, best of all, to research and write things I truly care about. Over the past two years I have made enormous strides as a writer: My research and interview skills are infinitely stronger than when I started out and my writing is much better. I have grown from being published in very small, very local publications to negotiating with editors at national magazines. But it has never felt like enough.

Over the past weeks and months I have been thinking a lot about what I really want. I really want to write. But I also want to read and knit and create. I want to see the world. I have been too busy living at work to truly work at living. That is the missing piece.

I never wanted to be working 40+ hours per week at 28. I thought I would be piecing together odd jobs and contracts, taking extended periods of time off to travel. I imagined myself volunteering abroad, spending weeks at a family cottage in Northern Ontario, taking classes, devouring books on the beach. I had always seen work as a way to feed my dreams, not something to work my dreams around. I have become so caught up in furthering my career that I have let go of so many things that are truly important to me.

I am not going to stop writing. But I am going to start taking time to sip tea in the afternoons, read the books that have been gathering dust on my shelves, plant flowers on the balcony, write long letters in handmade cards, cut and paste photos in my scrapbook. And I am going to travel.

In the upcoming weeks and months I am traveling to New York City, Thailand and Toronto, but I am not waiting until a plane whisks me off to a destination thousands of miles away from home. I am starting today. In a few minutes J and I are going to jump in the car for an impromptu road trip complete with picnic lunch.

Starting today I am going to make it a priority to carve out time for the things that are important to me. Maybe this means I will be writing less, or at the very least choosing different projects, but I will keep writing.